Madlanga Commission hearing record
Day 177 of the Madlanga Commission
Witness: Madoda Johannes 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni
The cross-examination everyone came for did not happen. The taxi boss read a supplementary statement instead, objected to his own phone being used against him, and defended a R145,000 a month security contract and the bakkie that came with it.
The day in brief
What you need to know
- Every allegation on this page is untested. Sibanyoni has answered it from the witness box and denies it. He is presumed innocent, as is everyone else named here.
- The day was set down for the cross-examination of Madoda 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni, part-heard since Day 169 on 28 August. It did not take place. Per SABC News the postponement was down to the unavailability of his counsel; per Newzroom Afrika the difficulty was that the commission had given him the bundles late. No new date has been announced.
- What the day produced instead was his supplementary statement, read into the record at the Bridgette Mabandla Justice College in Pretoria under what EWN described as tight security.
- He objected to the commission using material taken off his cellphone when it was seized in the Kwaggafontein criminal investigation in which he faces extortion and money laundering charges, calling it, per TimesLIVE, 'an absolute abuse and open-ended violation of my privacy and constitutional rights', and reserved the right to take it on urgent review.
- He also objected to that material being aired in sittings he does not attend, saying he cannot answer evidence put up in his absence.
- He told the panel that the Shosholoza stokvel, an investment pool the commission has put to him as a route for improper money, is outside its terms of reference. Per Sowetan: 'the Shosholoza stokvel does not fall within the commission's terms of reference'; he described it as a lawful pooling arrangement among eight members, one of them a security company director, and Sowetan reports R30 million was found in it at one point. Per EWN: 'The commission appears to frame this stokvel as a vehicle for improper financial flows. I categorically deny this characterisation.'
- He objected in the same way to questions about alleged irregularities in Putco bus contracts, saying per Sowetan and TimesLIVE that background of that kind cannot found an adverse finding against him without proper notice.
- On his pending criminal docket being used as an exhibit at all, per Sowetan: 'The inclusion of a pending criminal docket as an exhibit before this commission is itself constitutionally problematic', and 'The commission is not a criminal court.'
- He accused the commission of procedural unfairness. Per The Citizen he said he was drip-fed evidence, receiving more than 2,000 pages on 4 September, eighteen days after his own statement was due on 17 August, a sequence he called a chronological inversion because it made him answer before he could read.
- Per The Citizen, on the cost of answering that way: 'To simply take it for granted that one can and will always bear the cost of lawyers to draft statements in this manner is truly not appropriate.'
- He denied any improper relationship with police officers. Per Sowetan and TimesLIVE, asked to explain why five police officers held access codes to his Centurion estate, he said he did not know four of them personally, professionally or socially, and knew the fifth, Warrant Officer Bhokgolo Mahlangu, through family: his younger brother has a son in the Mahlangu family.
- Per EWN, on suspended organised crime unit Sergeant Fannie Nkosi, whose WhatsApp traffic has been led at length before this commission, he said Nkosi was 'a social acquaintance, a mover and a shaker' who visited his home ten to twelve times socially, and that the messages, from around December 2024, showed only that 'sergeant Nkosi would indicate to me when he had news'.
- On the security company Gubis85 Solutions, per IOL and Sowetan: it was paid R145,000 a month including VAT, about R1.7 million a year, to provide VIP protection to the Pretoria Mabopane Pietersburg Taxi Association and related entities from March 2024, and it gave him a bakkie worth about R1 million.
- Per IOL, a Gubis85 letter dated 1 March 2025 framed the vehicle as recognition of 'the longstanding relationship and goodwill between Gubis85, myself and the Joe Sibanyoni Foundation', and stated it was not consideration for any contract, favour or procurement opportunity. Sibanyoni's account is that the security arrangement answered credible threats to his life and that the gift came out of his personal relationship with the company's owner.
- Gubis85 is not a bystander in this record. Per IOL it is alleged to have benefited from irregular payments and a multimillion rand City of Tshwane security contract awarded without proper authorisation or oversight. Sibanyoni told the commission no entity of his was used as a conduit for money from City of Tshwane or Tshwane Metro Police contracts.
- He drew a line around the commission's mandate more than once: per EWN he declined to answer on the Kwagga 20 proceedings, in which he said he is not directly implicated, and per The Citizen he said questions about the Moloto Road and Evergreen bus contracts are commercial matters outside the terms of reference.
- Per SABC News the sitting adjourned briefly so he could work through corrections he had missed in his own supplementary statement, and when he came back and answered 'I think so', the chairperson told him: 'You must be more categorical than this.'
- Per IOL he told the panel the inquiry is being watched abroad: 'I was in Europe, when I was there in that hotel, you were the topic of the day.'
- The commission also put his own WhatsApp traffic to him, and this is the strand his co-accused went to the High Court to stop two days later. Per Business Day and the Mail and Guardian the evidence leaders took him through messages exchanged with Bafana Sindane, the KwaMhlanga taxi owner subpoenaed for Day 178, and read some of them as touching on izinkabi, a word that can mean contract killers.
- His answer was a definition. Per Business Day and the Mail and Guardian he told the panel that within the taxi industry izinkabi is used for the men who protect taxi bosses and ranks, not for hitmen, and per Business Day he denied the underlying suggestion outright: 'I categorically deny that I have ever commissioned, employed, assessed or provided support to persons engaged in taxi violence.'
- On an August 2025 message in which he asked Sindane about 'baobe', per Business Day he said he was seeking to establish whether Sindane had any information about the two men named in it. This archive does not publish those two names: they are private individuals who have answered nothing and are accused of nothing.
- Per Business Day and the Daily Maverick, a message of 7 March 2025 reading 'The dog is dead' was put to him. He said it referred to the shooting of a man called Mabonga, from the Money Talks association, in a police shootout, and that it was 'a police matter, not something I participated in or directed'. Per Business Day he denied sending it.
- Per Business Day and the Daily Maverick he was also asked about a message of 25 June 2025 reading 'We are in charge of the streets'. His explanation was that it needs context: per Business Day he tied it to daily operations, and per the Daily Maverick to personal self-control while running.
- Per IOL he described Sindane as someone who had 'always been closest to me' and their relationship as one of peacekeeping and conflict resolution in the taxi industry. Per the Daily Maverick he also rejected any link to the grouping the record calls The Farm: 'I therefore flatly and categorically reject this suggestion... I have no association with The Farm.'
- Public evidence was due to close on 2 October 2026. Two days before this sitting the Presidency moved the report deadline out to 25 January 2027 and called it the final extension, but nothing has been said about moving the close of public evidence, and a cross-examination with no date is still a cross-examination running out of calendar.
Full coverage
The day, in depth
The day that was set down and did not happen
Sibanyoni read a prepared statement on Day 169, on 28 August, and was not questioned on it. Cross-examination was set down for today, and the commission's own record has carried that date since. He arrived; the questions did not. Per SABC News his further testimony was postponed to a date yet to be confirmed because his counsel was unavailable. Per Newzroom Afrika the obstacle was on the other side of the table: he says the commission gave him the evidence bundles late, which is also the complaint that runs through the statement he read. Both reasons can be true at once, and neither has been ruled on. What is not in dispute is the position it leaves: a witness the commission's evidence has described for a year, who has now given his account twice without anyone testing it, and eight sitting days left before public evidence closes.
His own phone, and whether it can be used here
The sharpest legal point of the day was about evidence the commission did not gather. Sibanyoni's cellphone was seized in the criminal investigation at Kwaggafontein in which he is charged with extortion and two counts of money laundering. Its contents have since appeared in this inquiry. Per TimesLIVE he told the commission: 'I submit that the appearance of my phone's content before this commission represents an absolute abuse and open-ended violation of my privacy and constitutional rights.' He objected formally to any reliance on data obtained through that seizure, reserved the right to bring an urgent court application, and objected separately to what he called the flighting of that material in sittings he does not attend, on the basis that he cannot challenge what is put up while he is absent. News24's live coverage led on the same objection. The commission has not ruled on it. The question is a real one for an inquiry that works from documents gathered by other processes: it is not a finding either way on what the phone contains.
Drip-fed, and the cost of answering
Per The Citizen, Sibanyoni told the commission that after he filed his first statement on 17 August he was sent evidence in instalments, including more than 2,000 pages on 4 September, eighteen days after his own deadline. He called the sequence a chronological inversion: he was required to answer the commission's case before he was given it, and each new tranche meant another supplementary statement and another set of legal fees. 'To simply take it for granted that one can and will always bear the cost of lawyers to draft statements in this manner is truly not appropriate,' he said. Sowetan reports the same complaint in his own word for it, drip-feeding. It is a procedural objection rather than an answer on the merits, but it is the second time in four weeks that a witness has told this commission its disclosure timetable is making the answering harder, and it is the reason his counsel gave for not being ready to be cross-examined today.
Five access codes and a sergeant who had news
The substance he did deal with was his proximity to police officers. Per Sowetan and TimesLIVE the commission asked him to explain why five police officers held access codes to his Centurion estate. He said he did not know four of them personally, professionally or socially, and that he knew the fifth, Warrant Officer Bhokgolo Mahlangu, because his younger brother has a son in the Mahlangu family. His general answer was flat: 'I have never associated with them for some improper motive or purpose.' The officer whose name carries the most weight in this record is not on that list but on the messages. Per EWN he described suspended organised crime unit Sergeant Fannie Nkosi, the man who told this commission that Sibanyoni belonged to a 'group of five' businessmen, as 'a social acquaintance, a mover and a shaker' who had been to his house ten or twelve times socially and had access codes of his own, and said the WhatsApp traffic from around December 2024 shows nothing more than that 'sergeant Nkosi would indicate to me when he had news'. Nkosi's own conduct is the subject of separate evidence before this commission. Neither man's account has been tested.
R145,000 a month, and a bakkie
The money question of the day was Gubis85 Solutions, a security company already in this record through the City of Tshwane security tenders. Per IOL and Sowetan, Sibanyoni told the commission Gubis85 has provided VIP protection to the Pretoria Mabopane Pietersburg Taxi Association and related entities since March 2024 at R145,000 a month including VAT, roughly R1.7 million a year, a figure the chairperson probed. He said the protection answered credible threats to his own safety in an industry that has twice tried to kill him. He also confirmed receiving a bakkie worth about R1 million from the same company, and produced a Gubis85 letter of 1 March 2025 describing it as recognition of 'the longstanding relationship and goodwill between Gubis85, myself and the Joe Sibanyoni Foundation' and stating that it was not consideration for a contract, favour, procurement opportunity or other commercial benefit. Per IOL, Gubis85 is alleged to have benefited from irregular payments and a multimillion rand City of Tshwane security contract awarded without proper authorisation, evaluation or oversight. Sibanyoni denied that any entity of his has been used as a conduit for money flowing from City of Tshwane or Tshwane Metro Police contracts, and, per Sowetan, separated his sister's employment at the company from any suggestion of an improper financial relationship involving him. A gift letter is a document about a gift. It is not proof of what the gift was for, in either direction.
Where he says the commission may not go
Three times he drew the boundary of the inquiry rather than answer inside it. Per EWN he declined to deal with the Kwagga 20 proceedings, saying he is not directly implicated in them as a person and that the material falls outside the commission's mandate. Per The Citizen he treated questions about the Moloto Road infrastructure and the Evergreen bus contracts as commercial matters outside the terms of reference. And he invoked the protection against self-incrimination on parts of the record that overlap with his pending criminal case. Per Sowetan he added two more: the Shosholoza stokvel, which he said 'does not fall within the commission's terms of reference' and described as a lawful pooling arrangement among eight members, one of them a security company director, with R30 million in it at one point; and alleged irregularities in Putco bus contracts, which he said were background that could not found an adverse finding against him without proper notice. Per EWN his answer on the stokvel was flat: 'The commission appears to frame this stokvel as a vehicle for improper financial flows. I categorically deny this characterisation.' Per TimesLIVE he said the money was member contributions and year-end distributions from people in the taxi industry. He also went at the docket itself, per Sowetan: 'The inclusion of a pending criminal docket as an exhibit before this commission is itself constitutionally problematic', and 'The commission is not a criminal court.' Rule 10.6 witnesses are entitled to take those points and the chairperson decides them; none of it was ruled on today. The pattern is familiar from Matlala's four appearances: a witness whose criminal matter is running in parallel has a legitimate reason to say less here, and the commission has a mandate that does not stop at the edge of a charge sheet.
The corrections, and the chairperson
Per SABC News the morning had a procedural stumble of its own. Sibanyoni told the panel he had missed corrections in his supplementary statement and should have had assistance working through the detail, and the sitting adjourned briefly so he could consult his legal team. When he returned, Justice Madlanga asked him to confirm that the amendments were made. He answered 'I think so'. The chairperson pressed: 'You must be more categorical than this.' He then confirmed it: 'I've made the corrections, Chair. Yes.' It is a small exchange that says something about the state of the file on both sides.
Izinkabi, and the messages his co-accused later went to court to bury
The part of Day 177 that mattered most to the week that followed was the phone traffic itself. Per Business Day and the Mail and Guardian the evidence leaders took Sibanyoni through WhatsApp exchanges with Bafana Sindane, the KwaMhlanga taxi owner then due to appear on Day 178, and read some of them as touching on izinkabi. His case was that the word does not carry the meaning the commission was putting on it: per Business Day and the Mail and Guardian, in the taxi industry izinkabi refers to the men who protect taxi bosses and their ranks, not to contract killers. On the substance he was categorical, per Business Day: 'I categorically deny that I have ever commissioned, employed, assessed or provided support to persons engaged in taxi violence.' Individual messages were put to him one by one. On an August 2025 exchange in which he asked Sindane about 'baobe', per Business Day he said he was only trying to establish whether Sindane had information about the two men it named; this archive does not publish those names, because they belong to private individuals who have answered nothing and stand accused of nothing. On a message of 7 March 2025 reading 'The dog is dead', per Business Day and the Daily Maverick he said it referred to a man called Mabonga, of the Money Talks association, shot in a police shootout, that 'the event was a police matter, not something I participated in or directed', and per Business Day he denied sending it. On a message of 25 June 2025 reading 'We are in charge of the streets', per Business Day he said it required context and related to daily operations, and per the Daily Maverick that it was about self-control while running. Per IOL he described Sindane as the man who had 'always been closest to me' and their dealings as peacekeeping and conflict resolution. Every one of those readings is contested and none of it has been tested: the commission has put an interpretation, the witness has put another, and no finding has been made. Two days later Sindane filed an urgent High Court application to stop the commission using those same messages at all.
Where the calendar stands
Sibanyoni's cross-examination has no date, and by the following day it had fallen away twice. It was re-set for Tuesday 22 September and postponed again: per Sowetan and the African News Agency his counsel, Advocate Mpati Qofa, told the chairperson he was unavailable from Tuesday and through the following week because his team was booked at the Khampepe Commission. Qofa also acts for Bafana Sindane, Sibanyoni's co-accused in the Delmas matter, whose own evidence the commission set down for Wednesday 23 September; Qofa undertook to file an application to move it, and per Sowetan the chairperson directed that it be filed by midnight and that Sindane attend on Wednesday regardless. His criminal matter, in which he and his co-accused remain on R70,000 bail each, was postponed by the Delmas Magistrates Court to 20 October after the defence said it had still not received the final docket or charge sheet, per EWN. Maj-Gen Feroz Khan's evidence is set down for 28 September. The National Prosecuting Authority's withdrawal of the charges against suspended national commissioner Fannie Masemola stands in the Pretoria court on 29 September. Public evidence was due to close on 2 October 2026. The report itself is no longer due on 16 November: on Saturday 19 September 2026, two days before this sitting, President Cyril Ramaphosa extended it to 25 January 2027, which the Presidency called the final extension. More time to write is not more time to hear, and the close of public evidence has not been moved.
In their words
Key moments from the record
“I submit that the appearance of my phone's content before this commission represents an absolute abuse and open-ended violation of my privacy and constitutional rights.”
“The commission appears to frame this stokvel as a vehicle for improper financial flows. I categorically deny this characterisation.”
“The inclusion of a pending criminal docket as an exhibit before this commission is itself constitutionally problematic.”
“The application must be filed by midnight on Monday... Sindane must also be present on Wednesday because you never know whether the application could be granted or not.”
“To simply take it for granted that one can and will always bear the cost of lawyers to draft statements in this manner is truly not appropriate.”
“I have never associated with them for some improper motive or purpose.”
“These messages demonstrate that sergeant Nkosi would indicate to me when he had news.”
“You must be more categorical than this.”
“I categorically deny that I have ever commissioned, employed, assessed or provided support to persons engaged in taxi violence.”
“The event was a police matter, not something I participated in or directed.”
“I was seeking to establish whether Mr Sindane ... had any information about these persons.”
“I was in Europe, when I was there in that hotel, you were the topic of the day.”
Our analysis
The bottom line
The commission has spent a year hearing about Joe Sibanyoni and has now had him in front of it twice without a single question being put to him under cross-examination. That is not a small procedural fact. His answer to the 'group of five' allegation is that he was the target rather than a member, and an untested denial and an untested allegation sit at exactly the same evidential level. With eight sitting days of public evidence left, the commission either finds a date or writes a report in which the most-named private individual in the taxi strand was never challenged on his account.
His objection to his own phone is the most consequential thing he said. Material seized under a criminal warrant, in a case that has not been tried, is now being read in a public inquiry that is not bound by the rules of a criminal trial. He says that is an abuse of his privacy and he has reserved the right to take it on review. A commission working through documents gathered by other processes will meet this argument again, and how the chairperson deals with it matters beyond this witness.
On the substance, what he gave the commission was an innocent explanation for each thing put to him, one at a time: the access codes were family or strangers, the sergeant was a social acquaintance who liked to share news, the R145,000 a month was protection against people who have shot at him twice, the bakkie was a gift with a letter to prove it was a gift. Taken singly each is plausible. The commission's interest is in whether the pattern of a taxi association paying a Tshwane-contracted security company, that company giving its client a million rand vehicle, and police officers holding access codes to the client's estate, is as innocent collectively as each piece is separately. That question was not asked today, because the cross-examination did not happen.
The procedural complaint deserves to be taken seriously rather than read as evasion. Being sent 2,000 pages eighteen days after your statement was due is a real problem for a witness, and it is the second time in a month that the commission's disclosure timetable has cost it a day. It is also, conveniently for him, the reason there was no cross-examination. Both things can be true.
Analysis is the archive’s own comment on the public proceedings, grounded in the record above. It weighs the evidence and the process; questions of individual guilt are for the courts and the commission to decide. Everyone named is presumed innocent.
Follow the threads
Who Madoda Johannes 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni connects to
Bafana 'King of the Sky' Sindane
Sindane is one of the three men charged with Sibanyoni over an alleged R2.2 million in protection fees demanded from a mining businessman between 2022 and 2025, and Advocate Mpati Qofa acts for both of them. It was Qofa's unavailability that pushed Sibanyoni's cross-examination past 22 September 2026, and Sindane was called to the commission for 23 September. On Day 180, 29 September 2026, that alliance came apart in public: per IOL and the African News Agency, Sibanyoni told Commissioner Advocate Sandile Khumalo SC that Sindane sent the alleged threatening message on his own, 'he [Sindane] was acting on his own'. Sindane has given no evidence to this commission and has not answered it. Both men deny the charges and are presumed innocent.
View profile →The man he accuses, who is deadJotham 'King Mswazi' Msibi
On Day 169 Sibanyoni named Msibi as the source of the threat against him, said Msibi told him 'we die in the business', said Msibi surrounded himself with izinkabi after being confronted over the 2006 shooting, and said Msibi's death in January 2024 brought relief. He succeeded Msibi as president of the taxi body. Msibi died in January 2024 and cannot answer any of it; untested.
View profile →Accused of the attempt on his lifeVusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala
Matlala and four co-accused have pleaded not guilty to 25 charges, including eleven counts of attempted murder, arising from the 10 August 2022 shooting of Sibanyoni at the Centurion Golf and Country Club estate. The trial began on 21 July 2026 with Sibanyoni as the state's first witness. Matlala denies the charges and is presumed innocent.
View profile →Named in his account of why he feared for his lifeKatiso 'KT' Molefe
On Day 169 Sibanyoni said the association between the late Jotham Msibi and both Molefe and Vusimuzi Matlala convinced him a renewed threat against him was forming. Molefe has never given evidence to this commission, is charged in separate matters and is presumed innocent. Untested.
View profile →Named in the same alleged circleSteve Motsumi
Both men are named on this commission's record in connection with the network around the late Jotham Msibi - Motsumi on the Day 161 messages from Msibi's phone, Sibanyoni in Sergeant Fannie Nkosi's 'group of five'. Neither allegation has been tested and both men are presumed innocent.
View profile →In the room & on the record
Counsel, the panel and sources
On the panel
Sources
- SABC News - Madlanga Inquiry: Sibanyoni resumes testimony after corrections (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- SABC News - Madlanga Commission: Joe 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni cross-examination postponed (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- Newzroom Afrika - Madlanga Commission: Sibanyoni cross-examination delayed (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- TimesLIVE - Sibanyoni objects to use of seized phone data at Madlanga commission (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- Sowetan - Taxi boss 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni denies any improper relationship with cops (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- Sowetan - Joe Sibanyoni objects to answering some of Madlanga's questions (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- Sowetan - Joe Sibanyoni's co-accused Sindane to face Madlanga (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- African News Agency - Taxi boss Bafana Sindane set to face Madlanga Commission over R2m extortion claims (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- TimesLIVE - Madlanga commission: five things to know from Joe Sibanyoni's testimony (22 Sep 2026) ↗
- EWN - Madlanga Commission: Sibanyoni's links to suspended officer Nkosi to be spotlighted (22 Sep 2026) ↗
- The Citizen - Madlanga commission: Joe 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni cries foul over 'procedural unfairness' (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- IOL - R145,000 a month for protection and a R1m bakkie gift: Sibanyoni explains Gubis85 deal (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- EWN - 'Nothing inappropriate': Joe Sibanyoni pushes back over suspended sergeant messages (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- EWN - Madlanga Commission: High security as taxi boss Joe Sibanyoni appears (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- IOL - 'Topic of the day in Europe': Sibanyoni says Madlanga Commission has the world watching (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- News24 - LIVE: Sibanyoni objects to his seized phone data being used, flighted at Madlanga Commission (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- EWN - Delmas court postpones R2.2m extortion case against Joe 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni (1 Sep 2026) ↗
- Business Day - Taxi boss Joe Sibanyoni denies contract killings as inquiry probes phone records (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- Mail and Guardian - Joe 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni denies links to rogue police and 'izinkabi' (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- Daily Maverick - Joe 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni describes 'avalanche' of deaths, defends 'jogging' texts (21 Sep 2026) ↗
- IOL - Madlanga Commission: taxi boss questions legality of cellphone, WhatsApp evidence (22 Sep 2026) ↗